There is only grunt and not grunt. There is no try.

A friend was telling me today about an occasion when she was working with a class of special educational needs kids. They were making pictures with pieces of coloured paper, and one particular boy wasn't really engaging with this. So he was told all he needed to do was try. His response was to make big straining grunty noises as he stuck down the bits of paper, and otherwise continue as he had been doing.

It struck me that most of us do what amounts to the same thing - trying, or appearing to try, and not getting anywhere. The trouble with telling our kids to try is that the effort itself becomes the goal, not the objective. Struggle and strain become equated with success. So when do kids suddenly unlearn this? Well, actually they don't usually. When we get stuck, most of us automatically snap into the "must try harder" mode we learned at school and beat our heads harder and harder against it. If effort doesn't produce success there's a contradiction, and we get confused, frustrated, angry or panicky (I tend to favour confused and panicky myself). And then carry on doing more of the same.

Unfortunately the results tend to look like someone trying to rev their way out of being stuck in the mud, and just creating an ever deeper rut. So, what to do? Well, like the man said, stop digging. Or revving, or head-beating - whatever you keep doing that isn't working. Until you do that, you stand no chance of coming up with an alternative solution. Stopping digging is very often soooo tough - the urge to try can be so overwhelming, even in the face of knowing what you're doing is counterproductive.

Maybe remembering that "trying" is just making big straining grunty noises will help.